


thorn

by fnowae



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Centaur AU, M/M, it's poly fob because fuck you thats why, very light angst if you squint, yeah this is weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 02:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12003138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fnowae/pseuds/fnowae
Summary: Patrick has no idea what's going on other thanapparently he's a fucking centaur now.





	thorn

**Author's Note:**

> why did I write this? BECAUSE I LOVE CENTAURS AND WE NEED MORE CENTAUR CONTENT THANK YOU. there's two whole centaur fics in the FOB tag and one of them was my fault anyway lmfao. 
> 
> also, I start high school on Wednesday and I'm kinda panicking over it so !! writing this calmed me. wild. 
> 
> enjoy!

It's not that Patrick hates camping. He doesn't. He really doesn't. There are plenty of individual things he likes about it - hiking, sunrise over the treetops, campfires. But also, there are things he does hate. Namely, having to get the wood for said campfire. 

"Are you sure _I_ have to get the firewood?" he asks dubiously, hovering at the edge of the clearing they've set up camp in and hoping he has an excuse to turn back. 

"It's your turn. We talked about this," Pete responds distractedly, preoccupied with greedily eyeing the bag of marshmallows that Andy is withholding sternly from him. 

"Yeah, yeah, but it's dark," Patrick tries weakly, even though he knows it won't help his case in the least. 

"You're holding a lantern," Joe points out, pointing to the admittedly extremely bright electric lantern clutched in Patrick's right hand. 

"Fine," Patrick relents, "I'm going."

Some people say that forests are more beautiful at night, when the stars shine in the sky and the wildlife is roaming freely. Patrick thinks that's bullshit. It's dark and terrifying and only a five foot circle of lanternlight stands between him and anything that wants to kill him. 

He wonders why they couldn't have just bought firewood at the store and brought it up. But, no, his fucking asshole boyfriends had insisted that _we have to keep it authentic, Patrick!_ Authentic, his ass. They're staying in a cabin with running water and electricity. They couldn't stand to bring some wood up with them too?

Grumbling annoyedly to himself, Patrick stalks along the faint trail through the woods, picking up fire-worthy twigs and sticks as he finds them. A few minutes out, he spots a dry, fallen tree to his right, and bolts for it, because that thing has enough firewood to allow him to head back right this second. He snaps off enough branches to load his arms up to the point where he almost can't hold all of the wood, and turns to head back to the trail. 

Except now he can't see the trail. 

"Fucking really?" he complains to no one, waving his lantern around vaguely and trying to illuminate the path back. But of fucking course the small circle of light the lantern gives him doesn't stretch far enough to show where the trail is. 

He walks cautiously in the direction he thinks he's supposed to be going in, even though he's totally unsure if it's actually correct. Step by step, he keeps his eyes trained forward, scanning for absolutely any sign of the path he needs to take back. But there's nothing. 

"Wow, this is great!" he announces to the forest around him, unsurprised when nothing responds to it. He grumbles and tries going right instead, hoping that maybe that's the correct way. 

He walks straight into a thorny bush and swears under his breath as it cuts into his legs. This is what the path is for! If he could just find the damn thing, he wouldn't be having this problem!

He glares down at the offending bush. It's not something he's ever seen before, and it's fucking weird, too. It has brightly colored chartreuse vines that glint in the lanternlight, and neon purple five-petaled blooms all over it. It doesn't look like a real thing, and Patrick is at first sure he's dreaming. But the pain in his legs says otherwise. Maybe he's just run into a rare, poisonous plant that's going to kill him because he touched it. Wouldn't that be fucking great? Then he has a reason to never go out for firewood again. Because he'd be dead. 

Patrick steps around the bush, doing a quick check of the area with his lantern and making sure that no more of those things are near him. Thankfully, there's no more, just your usual ferns and tall grasses. Patrick mutters another meaningless complaint under his breath and continues forward. 

Suddenly, he's on the trail again, and somewhere close to the camp too - he can see light from the other two lanterns they'd brought through the trees. He lets out a sigh of relief. Finally. 

He emerges from the forest and dumps his pile of firewood unceremoniously on the ground next to the fire pit, informing everyone pleasantly, "I hate all of you."

No one responds to this. Joe just gets up and walks over, starting to stack the wood meticulously in the fire pit. He pauses and looks to Patrick. 

"Hey, babe, wait, what happened to your legs?" he asks, gesturing vaguely. 

Patrick looks down. His legs are peppered with thin cuts from the thorn bush. None of them are even that bad - not one is really actually bleeding. But he supposes it's still cause for mild concern. 

"Walked through a thorn bush," he explains simply, shrugging. 

Joe frowns. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Doesn't even hurt anymore," Patrick responds, then adds, realizing it just as he says it, "Kind if itches now, though."

"Did you walk into some poison ivy?" Pete asks, sitting up in his chair, positioned a few feet away from the fire pit. 

"No, you idiot, poison ivy doesn't have thorns," Patrick says, rolling his eyes. "Plus, I know what poison ivy looks like, and it definitely wasn't that."

"You okay, though?" Andy asks, voice tinged with a hint of concern. 

"Yeah," Patrick answers, watching as Joe lights the fire and flames begin to spread along the carefully stacked wood. "I'm good."

///

Patrick wakes up to the sound of soft wind rushing through the trees and birds chirping outside. The gentle light streaming through the windows indicates that it's just about sunrise. Patrick vaguely considers going out to watch the sun climb in the sky - sunrise is so pretty out here. 

He looks around the cabin, noting that his boyfriends are still asleep. There's only one bed in the cabin, because they don't own the cabin, they're renting it, and therefore they can't change the sparse furniture arrangements. So as a result, they trade between sleeping on the bed - which can only hold two people in sleeping bags at once - and the floor. Right now, Patrick is on the floor with Joe to his left, and Pete and Andy have gotten the luxury of the small, uncomfortable bed. 

Patrick is surprised that he's the only one up. He's usually the last to wake, and he's used to having to be literally dragged out of bed before he actually reaches a noticeable level of consciousness. 

He supposes that if he really does want to get out in time to watch the end of sunrise, he should get up now. He reaches down to unzip his sleeping bag, trying to do it quietly as not to wake his sleeping boyfriends. 

He finishes unzipping the sleeping bag and flips it open and-

Uh, wow, holy fuck. 

Patrick's mouth drops open as he stares - what else is he supposed to do? He can't comprehend what he's seeing. Holy shit. 

From the waist up, everything is normal. If he'd stayed in the sleeping bag, Patrick wouldn't have even noticed that something was wrong. But waist down...that's another story. 

Patrick's legs have disappeared and have been replaced with the body of a horse. 

He stares some more. He wants to scream, or at least make some kind of loud noise to release whatever series of unidentifiable emotions this is making him feel, but he can't wake up his boyfriends. Definitely not now. 

Patrick takes a deep breath, eyes still trained on his brand new bottom half. Whatever horse it belongs to is a small one - small and pale brown and a little bit shaggy. At least, small enough that he had fit in his sleeping bag without noticing something was wrong. Patrick does a little more staring, and then is interrupted by Joe rolling over next to him. 

This spurs Patrick into a new wave of panic. Fuck his own feelings, what would happen if his boyfriends woke up and saw this? In his panicked mindset, he concludes that there's only one solution. He's gotta run. 

What he hasn't considered is that he really isn't used to these legs. Firstly, it takes him forever just to get to his feet - uh, hooves? - and the second he's up, he falls down again with a loud thud. He tries again to get up, and makes it all of one shaky step before collapsing. Okay, so escape is a nonstarter. That's just great. 

Joe rolls over again and yawns, and Patrick knows he has to do something fast. Out of options, he pushes himself back into his sleeping bag again and zips it up. This time, knowing what's happened, he notices that he definitely doesn't fit in it as well as he should. No matter how comparatively small the horse half is, sleeping bags were made for people with, well, _people_ legs. Not horse bits. 

The second Patrick finishes zipping up his sleeping bag, Joe blinks open his eyes and yawns again. He notices Patrick is already up, and looking a little surprised, sleepily greets him, "Morning."

"Uh, morning," Patrick responds nervously, hoping Joe doesn't notice that something is wrong. He tries to shift a little in his sleeping bag, because in hurriedly zipping it he'd bent one of his legs at an odd angle, but he can't seem to get into a comfortable position. 

Joe sits up, climbing out of his sleeping bag and getting to his feet. "I'm gonna wake Pete and Andy up. Want to help?"

"Uh, no, I'll be fine here," Patrick responds, giving Joe a strained smile. He'll stay in this sleeping bag all day if he has to. He's not revealing what's inside it, not under any circumstances. 

"Alright." Joe shrugs, walking over to the bed and leaning down, yelling right into Pete and Andy's ears, "WAKE UP, FUCKERS, IT'S HIKING DAY."

Patrick's stomach sinks. Oh, god. Not hiking day. He can't hike like this! Disregarding the fact that he _can't even walk_ , he also refuses to admit what's happened to him. 

Yeah, wait, what _has_ happened to him?

That's a good fucking question. Patrick has no idea what's going on other than _apparently he's a fucking centaur now_. He can't figure out what could've caused this. He didn't do anything, did he? Actually...

Oh, it was that fucking weird plant, wasn't it? Good. Now Patrick can blame this on his boyfriends for making him go and get the firewood. Finally, a target for his pent up...whatever emotion he's feeling right now. 

"Patrick. Come on."

Patrick's head snaps up to see Pete standing over his sleeping bag, looking concerned. While he'd been lost in thought, Pete had walked over, and Andy and Joe had left the cabin for whatever reason - Patrick is pretty sure they've gone to watch the end of the sunrise. 

"Huh?" Patrick asks, feigning confusion. He dreads the response he knows he's going to get. 

"Hiking day. Get up," Pete says, raising an eyebrow. "We have to leave before it gets hot out."

"Uh, yeah, right," Patrick mumbles, searching for any excuse to get out of this. Finding nothing legitimate, he blurts out, "Uh, I think I'm...sick?" He tries to fake a cough, but it doesn't come out very convincing. And, well, neither did the excuse. 

Pete frowns, seeing right through Patrick's lie. "You're not sick, Patrick, you're trying to get out of this. Are you okay? You love hiking!"

"Uh, yeah. I do," Patrick says blankly, looking for another, hopefully more believable, excuse. "But I, uh...really don't feel good."

Or, sure, he could just go for the excuse that already failed. That too. 

"Well, at least get up. I'm sure you'll feel better then," Pete responds, even though it's obvious he knows full well that Patrick feels fine. 

"I really don't want to," Patrick insists, mentally crossing his fingers that Pete will give it up. 

Of course he doesn't. "Get up or I'm pulling you out of that sleeping bag."

"I really don't think you want to-" Patrick starts, but it's too late, because Pete has already grabbed him by the waist and started tugging him out of the safety of the sleeping bag. 

"Pete, don't-" Patrick tries again, but by the time the word "don't" is out of his mouth, Pete already has him out of the bag. 

When he sees Patrick's lower half, Pete's jaw drops, and he drops Patrick with it. Patrick is left lying awkwardly on his side on the cold floor, with Pete staring at him in awe. 

"Whoa, uh, holy shit," Pete breathes out, his gaze fixed steadily on the new horse part of Patrick's body. "What the fuck?"

Patrick winces, unsure how to respond to that, and for some reason, when something does come out of his mouth, it's, "Please don't make me go hiking! I can't figure out how to walk!"

Pete makes an unreadable face and opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, the cabin door opens and Joe and Andy walk in, freezing the second they spot Patrick lying helplessly on the floor. 

"Whoa, what the hell?" Joe exclaims, eyes going as wide as possible in a split second. Patrick just tenses up on the ground, unsure what to say or do. He doesn't like this situation. He doesn't like it at all. 

"Don't kill me or something!" Patrick blurts out, and he's really not sure why he'd said it, but he's afraid right now, and he supposes it helps a little to assign that fear to something, no matter how nonsensical. 

"Whoa, babe, no one's killing you," Pete says, slowly kneeling down next to Patrick. "Calm down. What is this?"

Patrick takes a deep breath, trying to figure out how to answer a question he doesn't even fully know the answer to. Finally, he just says, "I - I don't know. I literally just woke up like this. I know about as much as you do." He makes a split second decision not to mention the weird plant, or how he thinks that was the cause of this whole mess. He feels bad for wanting to blame his boyfriends earlier - and he knows if he would, they would too, if they knew. He's keeping it to himself. 

"Holy shit." Pete is still staring, and it's making Patrick a little bit uncomfortable, but he supposes if he was Pete he'd be staring too. 

"Uh, wow," Andy speaks up, voice hushed. 

Patrick forces himself to focus on the ground and pretend no one else is here. This is so horrible. They're gonna hate him now, aren't they? Or something like that. Patrick can only imagine negative outcomes from this ridiculous situation. 

"Hey, are you okay?" It's Joe, and when Patrick looks up, he realizes Joe has walked over and knelt down too, eyeing Patrick worriedly. Andy has followed him, but is still standing.

"You guys aren't going to leave, right?" Patrick asks, brow creasing anxiously as he asks. 

Joe shakes his head emphatically. "Oh, no, we wouldn't! Of course not!"

"Yeah!" Pete agrees, and Andy nods with certainty. 

"This is fucking weird," Patrick mutters, eyes drifting back down to his bottom half, which he's pretty sure he'll never get used to seeing. 

"Yeah, it is," Joe says softly. "But I'm sure we can work this out."

"No hiking day today, at least," Andy agrees, giving Patrick a warm smile. 

Patrick lets out a relieved exhale. "Oh god, you guys really don't care, do you?"

"Of course not," Pete answers. "We don't care if you're a horse dude, we still love you!"

"I'm pretty sure the word you're looking for is centaur," Patrick points out, raising an eyebrow. 

"Okay, horse dude," Pete says, laughing. "Whatever you say."

**Author's Note:**

> hey! guys! this was mostly meant to be a backstory fic because I ABSOLUTELY WANT TO WRITE MORE FOR THIS AU. So please please please prompt me in it at my Tumblr (vicesandvelociraptors) so I can write more fics for it and I will love you forever!! Or just send me headcanons for it!! Either one is great!!
> 
> Thanks for reading!!!


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